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Huge Falling Tree Crushes Golf Carts

On the right-hand side of the photo above—which I took this past Saturday morning, at the beginning of an annual mixed event called the Fall Classic—you can see a huge, ancient, two-trunked oak tree just past the end of the golf shop. About three and a half hours later, toward the end of the tournament, the tree suddenly fell down. My foursome was on the far side of the course when it went, but even from that distance the sound was like an explosion. Here’s what I saw when when I got back to the first tee:

The course was full of golfers, but, amazingly, no one was standing near the tree when it fell, and no one was sitting in any of the golf carts parked beside it. Bob W. and Nick-who-works-in-the-golf-shop were playing a putting game on the practice green, and they watched it go down.

The roots picked up the water cooler near the first tee and flipped it over the split-rail fence, onto its roof:

That’s Margaret’s coffee mug. It was unharmed.

Within an hour, our favorite tree guy, who played with Gene B. in the member-guest this year, was on the job. He and his crew cleaned up everything but the two main trunks, which were too big for the chipper.

The next morning, my friends and I posed on the trunks before we teed off. We’re thinking about turning them into a bench. Or maybe we’ll just leave them where they are. That would definitely be easier. Maybe we’ll leave the squashed golf carts there, too, as a reminder that golf carts don’t last forever.

4 thoughts on “Huge Falling Tree Crushes Golf Carts”

Too many golf clubs completely ignore arbhor care when maintaining a golf course or preparing an annual golf course budget. This is a line item that should be seriously considered for any golf course that is graced with nature’s specimens. Trees are beautiful, but must be properly maintained just like turf. They are very fortunate that they only lost a couple of golf carts.

You’re absolutely right. We have an annual tree program, and we’ve taken down 70 big trees in just the past two years. The one that fell was scheduled to be taken down this winter. It had been inspected by an arborist and had survived several huge storms, so no one was expecting it to fall all by itself. One good thing: the fact that it fell will make it easier for us to take down some other beloved old trees that also need to go.